Motorola Clarifies Upgrading Rooted Motorola Xooms

When the Motorola Xoom was released last month it was announced that it would be upgradeable to Verizon Wireless’ 4G/LTE network. That was one of the big draws to Motorola’s first tablet. That coupled with Android 3.0, Honeycomb, and a dual core processor make this one tablet filled with awesome.

The only downside to the Motorola Xoom upgrading to 4G/Lte was that you have to send the tablet into Motorola to get the 4G/LTE modem which could take between 3-6 days. Last week though there was another rumor, one that we even reported on. The rumor was that if you rooted/unlocked your Motorola Xoom you would not receive the upgrade.

More and Motorola’s statement after the break

Motorola has clarified their stance on rooted/unlocked Motorola Xoom’s and the 4G/LTE upgrade. If you’re rooted you’re safe however you need to roll your Xoom back to the factory preinstalled software in order to receive the software update and the hardware modem. Motorola has said that if your Xoom is rooted they will attempt to restore it and if they can’t they will throw the modem in and send it back to you without the software patch.

Here is there statement.

“All Motorola XOOM tablets on the Verizon Wireless network are eligible to receive an upgrade to support 4G LTE. This includes those that have been unlocked; however, those units must be submitted for upgrade with the original factory software reinstalled and the device relocked in order to receive the upgrade.

For devices that are returned unlocked, Motorola will attempt to complete the upgrade, but may be unable to update the software. In these cases, the device will be returned to the consumer with just the 4G LTE modem installed.”

A hacked copy of the factory installed ROM is now available from many sites, however even if you can’t restore it to the original software it sounds like you’re still in good shape.